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The parents' guide to secondary school: homework

If you thought getting your child to do their primary school homework was tough, just wait till they get to secondary school !

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Homework is a major – and daily – part of secondary school life, and while your child will be expected to get it done independently, it’s still important for you to keep abreast of what they need to do.

What’s the point of homework?

Homework helps to build on what your child is learning at school, and improves their academic achievement. A Department of Education study that followed 3,000 children over a 15-year period showed that any homework had educational benefits, and that pupils who did two to three hours a night got better results in English , maths and science .

Homework is particularly important when children start studying for GCSEs. Not only will they have to revise for their exams, but they’ll also need to put in the hours at home to make sure they’ve covered the syllabus in enough depth.

How much should your child be doing?

Previously, the Government advised that secondary school children should do two and a half hours of homework per night, but that guidance was scrapped in 2012, and it’s now up to schools to decide how much to set. About an hour to an hour and a half is usual in Years 7 and 8, rising to two to three hours in Years 10 and 11. A study of children’s homework habits around the world found that British pupils do an average 4.9 hours per week.

You can find out how much homework your child’s school expects them to do by looking at their homework policy on their website. There may also be a homework timetable to download so you can keep track of what your child should be doing.

What sort of tasks are set?

The type of homework your child is given will vary. It could include:

Learning: committing facts, words, details or rules to memory – for example, learning spellings or a list of irregular French verbs.

Completing: finishing work that was started at school.

Questions: answering questions about what they’ve been learning in class.

Researching: looking up information about a given topic using the internet, books and other resources.

Writing up: producing a final draft of rough work that was completed in school, or writing up what they’ve been learning about – for example, an essay about the book they’re reading in English.

Revision: going over what they’ve been learning in preparation for a test or exam.

Reading ahead: reading on in a textbook or reading to book to get an idea of what they’ll be learning next.

Rough work: preparing for a lesson or a piece of work by putting notes and information down on paper – for example, writing a paragraph plan for an essay.

Using a homework planner

Children are usually given a planner to help them manage their homework. They’ll be expected to use it every lesson to write down the details of their homework. You will probably be asked to sign their planner every week to confirm that they’ve completed their homework.

The homework planner is also a way for schools and parents to communicate about homework. For example, if your child has found a task too difficult, or if it seems to have taken them an unreasonable amount of time, you can write a note of explanation to the teacher. Or the teacher might write a message to you if your child has failed to hand their homework in.

Most schools also have some form of online portal to help pupils and parents keep track of homework. It might list the tasks your child has been set, provide links to resources or worksheets, and show when their homework is due in, has been handed in, and has been marked.

What if homework isn’t done?

Schools will have different policies concerning what happens if homework isn’t handed in, but it’s usual for children to have to complete the work in detention, which could be at break or lunchtime or after school. If they persistently fail to hand in their homework, you’re likely to be called in to discuss the problem.

Supporting your child with homework

It’s normal for your child to need some help getting used to the greater burden of homework when they start secondary school, and you’ll need to make sure you know what they’re supposed to be doing, chivvy them along when needed, and help them manage their time so it all gets done. Talk to your child about how they’d like to organise their homework: for example, would they prefer to get it out of the way as soon as they get home, or have some time to relax first? Do they want to do it all in one go, or break it down into shorter chunks?

As your child gets used to their new homework schedule, it’s expected that they’ll become more independent and you shouldn’t need to monitor them so closely. However, you can support them by making sure they have a quiet and comfortable place to work without distractions, and all the resources they need. Be available to help if they have questions or need pointing in the right direction, and check their work over every now and then: teachers will expect good presentation as well as accurate work. In some cases, you might need to be more involved, for example, by testing them ahead of an exam.

Many schools have after-school homework clubs where children can get their homework done. A homework club can be useful if pupils have assignments that involve using school resources, such as the library. It’s also helpful if you’re working and so have less time to help with homework, or if your child gets too distracted at home. Teachers or support staff are on hand to help, which can be a particular benefit for children who struggle with homework.

Don’t forget that you can use your child’s homework planner to let their teacher know of any problems with their homework, or ask questions if a task is unclear.  

BBC Bitesize has a range of starting secondary school resources  offering support and information about all aspects of secondary school life for parents and children.

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Should Kids Get Homework?

Homework gives elementary students a way to practice concepts, but too much can be harmful, experts say.

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Effective homework reinforces math, reading, writing or spelling skills, but in a way that's meaningful.

How much homework students should get has long been a source of debate among parents and educators. In recent years, some districts have even implemented no-homework policies, as students juggle sports, music and other activities after school.

Parents of elementary school students, in particular, have argued that after-school hours should be spent with family or playing outside rather than completing assignments. And there is little research to show that homework improves academic achievement for elementary students.

But some experts say there's value in homework, even for younger students. When done well, it can help students practice core concepts and develop study habits and time management skills. The key to effective homework, they say, is keeping assignments related to classroom learning, and tailoring the amount by age: Many experts suggest no homework for kindergartners, and little to none in first and second grade.

Value of Homework

Homework provides a chance to solidify what is being taught in the classroom that day, week or unit. Practice matters, says Janine Bempechat, clinical professor at Boston University 's Wheelock College of Education & Human Development.

"There really is no other domain of human ability where anybody would say you don't need to practice," she adds. "We have children practicing piano and we have children going to sports practice several days a week after school. You name the domain of ability and practice is in there."

Homework is also the place where schools and families most frequently intersect.

"The children are bringing things from the school into the home," says Paula S. Fass, professor emerita of history at the University of California—Berkeley and the author of "The End of American Childhood." "Before the pandemic, (homework) was the only real sense that parents had to what was going on in schools."

Harris Cooper, professor emeritus of psychology and neuroscience at Duke University and author of "The Battle Over Homework," examined more than 60 research studies on homework between 1987 and 2003 and found that — when designed properly — homework can lead to greater student success. Too much, however, is harmful. And homework has a greater positive effect on students in secondary school (grades 7-12) than those in elementary.

"Every child should be doing homework, but the amount and type that they're doing should be appropriate for their developmental level," he says. "For teachers, it's a balancing act. Doing away with homework completely is not in the best interest of children and families. But overburdening families with homework is also not in the child's or a family's best interest."

Negative Homework Assignments

Not all homework for elementary students involves completing a worksheet. Assignments can be fun, says Cooper, like having students visit educational locations, keep statistics on their favorite sports teams, read for pleasure or even help their parents grocery shop. The point is to show students that activities done outside of school can relate to subjects learned in the classroom.

But assignments that are just busy work, that force students to learn new concepts at home, or that are overly time-consuming can be counterproductive, experts say.

Homework that's just busy work.

Effective homework reinforces math, reading, writing or spelling skills, but in a way that's meaningful, experts say. Assignments that look more like busy work – projects or worksheets that don't require teacher feedback and aren't related to topics learned in the classroom – can be frustrating for students and create burdens for families.

"The mental health piece has definitely played a role here over the last couple of years during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the last thing we want to do is frustrate students with busy work or homework that makes no sense," says Dave Steckler, principal of Red Trail Elementary School in Mandan, North Dakota.

Homework on material that kids haven't learned yet.

With the pressure to cover all topics on standardized tests and limited time during the school day, some teachers assign homework that has not yet been taught in the classroom.

Not only does this create stress, but it also causes equity challenges. Some parents speak languages other than English or work several jobs, and they aren't able to help teach their children new concepts.

" It just becomes agony for both parents and the kids to get through this worksheet, and the goal becomes getting to the bottom of (the) worksheet with answers filled in without any understanding of what any of it matters for," says professor Susan R. Goldman, co-director of the Learning Sciences Research Institute at the University of Illinois—Chicago .

Homework that's overly time-consuming.

The standard homework guideline recommended by the National Parent Teacher Association and the National Education Association is the "10-minute rule" – 10 minutes of nightly homework per grade level. A fourth grader, for instance, would receive a total of 40 minutes of homework per night.

But this does not always happen, especially since not every student learns the same. A 2015 study published in the American Journal of Family Therapy found that primary school children actually received three times the recommended amount of homework — and that family stress increased along with the homework load.

Young children can only remain attentive for short periods, so large amounts of homework, especially lengthy projects, can negatively affect students' views on school. Some individual long-term projects – like having to build a replica city, for example – typically become an assignment for parents rather than students, Fass says.

"It's one thing to assign a project like that in which several kids are working on it together," she adds. "In (that) case, the kids do normally work on it. It's another to send it home to the families, where it becomes a burden and doesn't really accomplish very much."

Private vs. Public Schools

Do private schools assign more homework than public schools? There's little research on the issue, but experts say private school parents may be more accepting of homework, seeing it as a sign of academic rigor.

Of course, not all private schools are the same – some focus on college preparation and traditional academics, while others stress alternative approaches to education.

"I think in the academically oriented private schools, there's more support for homework from parents," says Gerald K. LeTendre, chair of educational administration at Pennsylvania State University—University Park . "I don't know if there's any research to show there's more homework, but it's less of a contentious issue."

How to Address Homework Overload

First, assess if the workload takes as long as it appears. Sometimes children may start working on a homework assignment, wander away and come back later, Cooper says.

"Parents don't see it, but they know that their child has started doing their homework four hours ago and still not done it," he adds. "They don't see that there are those four hours where their child was doing lots of other things. So the homework assignment itself actually is not four hours long. It's the way the child is approaching it."

But if homework is becoming stressful or workload is excessive, experts suggest parents first approach the teacher, followed by a school administrator.

"Many times, we can solve a lot of issues by having conversations," Steckler says, including by "sitting down, talking about the amount of homework, and what's appropriate and not appropriate."

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What’s the Right Amount of Homework?

Decades of research show that homework has some benefits, especially for students in middle and high school—but there are risks to assigning too much.

Many teachers and parents believe that homework helps students build study skills and review concepts learned in class. Others see homework as disruptive and unnecessary, leading to burnout and turning kids off to school. Decades of research show that the issue is more nuanced and complex than most people think: Homework is beneficial, but only to a degree. Students in high school gain the most, while younger kids benefit much less.

The National PTA and the National Education Association support the “ 10-minute homework guideline ”—a nightly 10 minutes of homework per grade level. But many teachers and parents are quick to point out that what matters is the quality of the homework assigned and how well it meets students’ needs, not the amount of time spent on it.

The guideline doesn’t account for students who may need to spend more—or less—time on assignments. In class, teachers can make adjustments to support struggling students, but at home, an assignment that takes one student 30 minutes to complete may take another twice as much time—often for reasons beyond their control. And homework can widen the achievement gap, putting students from low-income households and students with learning disabilities at a disadvantage.

However, the 10-minute guideline is useful in setting a limit: When kids spend too much time on homework, there are real consequences to consider.

Small Benefits for Elementary Students

As young children begin school, the focus should be on cultivating a love of learning, and assigning too much homework can undermine that goal. And young students often don’t have the study skills to benefit fully from homework, so it may be a poor use of time (Cooper, 1989 ; Cooper et al., 2006 ; Marzano & Pickering, 2007 ). A more effective activity may be nightly reading, especially if parents are involved. The benefits of reading are clear: If students aren’t proficient readers by the end of third grade, they’re less likely to succeed academically and graduate from high school (Fiester, 2013 ).

For second-grade teacher Jacqueline Fiorentino, the minor benefits of homework did not outweigh the potential drawback of turning young children against school at an early age, so she experimented with dropping mandatory homework. “Something surprising happened: They started doing more work at home,” Fiorentino writes . “This inspiring group of 8-year-olds used their newfound free time to explore subjects and topics of interest to them.” She encouraged her students to read at home and offered optional homework to extend classroom lessons and help them review material.

Moderate Benefits for Middle School Students

As students mature and develop the study skills necessary to delve deeply into a topic—and to retain what they learn—they also benefit more from homework. Nightly assignments can help prepare them for scholarly work, and research shows that homework can have moderate benefits for middle school students (Cooper et al., 2006 ). Recent research also shows that online math homework, which can be designed to adapt to students’ levels of understanding, can significantly boost test scores (Roschelle et al., 2016 ).

There are risks to assigning too much, however: A 2015 study found that when middle school students were assigned more than 90 to 100 minutes of daily homework, their math and science test scores began to decline (Fernández-Alonso, Suárez-Álvarez, & Muñiz, 2015 ). Crossing that upper limit can drain student motivation and focus. The researchers recommend that “homework should present a certain level of challenge or difficulty, without being so challenging that it discourages effort.” Teachers should avoid low-effort, repetitive assignments, and assign homework “with the aim of instilling work habits and promoting autonomous, self-directed learning.”

In other words, it’s the quality of homework that matters, not the quantity. Brian Sztabnik, a veteran middle and high school English teacher, suggests that teachers take a step back and ask themselves these five questions :

• How long will it take to complete?
• Have all learners been considered?
• Will an assignment encourage future success?
• Will an assignment place material in a context the classroom cannot?
• Does an assignment offer support when a teacher is not there?

More Benefits for High School Students, but Risks as Well

By the time they reach high school, students should be well on their way to becoming independent learners, so homework does provide a boost to learning at this age, as long as it isn’t overwhelming (Cooper et al., 2006 ; Marzano & Pickering, 2007 ). When students spend too much time on homework—more than two hours each night—it takes up valuable time to rest and spend time with family and friends. A 2013 study found that high school students can experience serious mental and physical health problems, from higher stress levels to sleep deprivation, when assigned too much homework (Galloway, Conner, & Pope, 2013 ).

Homework in high school should always relate to the lesson and be doable without any assistance, and feedback should be clear and explicit.

Teachers should also keep in mind that not all students have equal opportunities to finish their homework at home, so incomplete homework may not be a true reflection of their learning—it may be more a result of issues they face outside of school. They may be hindered by issues such as lack of a quiet space at home, resources such as a computer or broadband connectivity, or parental support (OECD, 2014 ). In such cases, giving low homework scores may be unfair.

Since the quantities of time discussed here are totals, teachers in middle and high school should be aware of how much homework other teachers are assigning. It may seem reasonable to assign 30 minutes of daily homework, but across six subjects, that’s three hours—far above a reasonable amount even for a high school senior. Psychologist Maurice Elias sees this as a common mistake: Individual teachers create homework policies that in aggregate can overwhelm students. He suggests that teachers work together to develop a school-wide homework policy and make it a key topic of back-to-school night and the first parent-teacher conferences of the school year.

Parents Play a Key Role

Homework can be a powerful tool to help parents become more involved in their child’s learning (Walker et al., 2004 ). It can provide insights into a child’s strengths and interests, and can also encourage conversations about a child’s life at school. If a parent has positive attitudes toward homework, their children are more likely to share those same values, promoting academic success.

But it’s also possible for parents to be overbearing, putting too much emphasis on test scores or grades, which can be disruptive for children (Madjar, Shklar, & Moshe, 2015 ). Parents should avoid being overly intrusive or controlling—students report feeling less motivated to learn when they don’t have enough space and autonomy to do their homework (Orkin, May, & Wolf, 2017 ; Patall, Cooper, & Robinson, 2008 ; Silinskas & Kikas, 2017 ). So while homework can encourage parents to be more involved with their kids, it’s important to not make it a source of conflict.

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For decades (and even centuries, according to some anthropological evidence ), homework has been considered an essential part of formal education . It’s believed that it provides you with the opportunity to ‘learn by doing’ and test and apply what you’ve been taught during school hours. 

However, some modern studies suggest that the practice of homework in schools might not be as helpful as we think it is. According to statistics on homework, homework over a certain level (the 10 minutes per grade standard) has been linked to excessive stress and disruption of personal and social habits in adolescents. It may surprise you to find out that the average amount of homework that kids from countries like the US, UK, France, and Germany currently get is above the standard limit . 😮

If you’re currently a student in the UK, you may be wondering whether homework actually does kids and teenagers any good. Keep reading to find out more about the pros and cons of homework.

What are the pros and cons of homework in school?

Pros: , homework encourages practice.

The primary purpose of homework in schools is to reinforce the habit of practising what you’ve learned in school. Some subjects like maths and languages require daily practice even outside of school hours for you to strengthen the fundamentals you’re learning. 

Practising these subjects regularly from a relatively young age can help equip you for secondary school and college courses like economics and literature, which require a strong knowledge of the basics. Also, independent learning in your own time is a fantastic way for you to identify the subjects you’re most interested in – who knows, you may even find your preferred field of study at an early age through homework! 👍

It allows your parents to be actively involved in your 

A healthy learning environment requires your parents to take an active interest in your education. Your parent or guardian helping you with your homework can help you gain a better understanding of what you’re learning and working on, since you’ll benefit from having anything you’re unsure of explained to you by someone other than your teacher at school. 

Helping you with your homework also makes it possible for your parents to stay involved and keep track of your progress in school in a non-intrusive manner. Additionally, it fosters good communication as you’ll talk to your parents more about the classes you’re attending and other school-related activities that they should know about. ✔️

It’s a great lesson in time management 

Homework in secondary school can be a great way for you to learn how to manage your time better. Older students are often actively involved in academics, sports , and several other extra-curricular activities that facilitate their all-round development. 

Therefore, completing homework outside of school from an early age can help you learn beyond the classroom and gradually get used to managing your time and responsibilities well. ⏰

Homework research encourages independent critical thinking 

Many schools are now opting for homework research as opposed to the traditional practice homework. In fact, it forms the very base of the flipped classroom structure where the students are given review materials before the class to grasp the concepts more quickly once they’re in school.

Homework research allows you to conduct your own research on a topic and form your own thoughts and opinions on what you’re learning. It encourages independent critical thinking from a young age, which is very beneficial for you. 💡

Not every child has a supportive enough home environment 

While most kids in school might have a supportive and peaceful home environment that allows them to study, some children and teenagers aren’t that lucky. Difficult domestic environments can be extremely stressful for kids, which can make independent learning outside of school challenging.

It might be difficult for kids without strong support at home to muster up the time and concentration needed to do the kind of homework that requires independent research and critical thinking. 

It adds to an already packed day 

Homework in schools, especially secondary school, often adds to your already busy days. While time management is an important virtue to learn, homework in secondary school can feel nearly impossible to manage with all the extra-curricular tasks you’re expected to juggle. 😰

Stress related to school can have a negative impact on young people’s mental health . If you find yourself struggling with your workload at school, you should speak to your parent or caretaker, or bring it up with your teacher so that you can get some extra support to help you through it. It’s not unusual for kids and teens to sometimes feel overwhelmed in their learning journey, so don’t be afraid to reach out if you need help!  

There’s no evidence that suggests the extra work produces better academic results for younger kids

A study conducted by the University of Michigan concluded that younger children (below 12 years of age) benefit more from activities such as reading for pleasure and not stipulated school homework. In fact, school homework might lessen the chances of a child reading or writing outside of school as a hobby. 

Research suggests that in many cases, kids having too much homework assigned to them stunts their overall personality development.  

How much homework do UK students get? 

Research on homework shows that the average British school student spends around 3.5 hours on their homework per week. Of these, primary students spend 2.2 hours; secondary students spend 4.3 hours; and sixth form students spend 5.3 hours on homework per week on average. While these numbers aren’t worrisome, they are still over the standard limit prescribed by most child health bodies. ☝️

It’s important for children and young people to communicate with their caretakers if they find that their workload is excessive. If you find yourself getting worried or stressed out over school , we would recommend speaking to your parents or bringing it up with a teacher. The most important thing is your wellbeing, and you need to be able to cope with your homework and make academic progress without increasing your stress levels. 

At GoStudent, we believe learning is a two-sided process that involves active participation from both students and tutors. We have thousands of top tutors available, so if you need any help with learning and homework, GoStudent may be just the ticket. Book a free trial lesson today to try us out! 

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Homework is defined as tasks assigned to students by teachers that are intended to be carried out during non-school hours [i] .  Homework is a unique educational practice as it is the only learning strategy that crosses the boundary between the school and the home. Much virtue has been attributed to the practice of homework that has not been borne out by research. Both teachers and parents have strong feelings, both positive and negative, about the value of homework, and parents and teachers alike still confuse homework load with rigour, and compliance with responsibility. To further complicate matters, most secondary teachers have never been trained in the effective use of homework, so tend to rely on the traditional types of tasks they experienced as students.

In recent years, the practice of homework has come under critical review, with public attitudes around the globe changing and international trends emerging, mostly at the primary level:

• Eliminating homework in the first 2-3 years of primary school.
• Limiting homework to reading only in the first 6 years of primary school.
• Eliminating weekend or holiday homework.

Trends in homework practice at the secondary level have emerged more slowly, as homework research for specific content areas has been inadequate to draw consistent conclusions.  Some general secondary trends include:

• More frequent use of study periods or academic labs during the school day, giving students time to complete homework or visit teachers for help.
• Schoolwide calendars that allow teachers to coordinate exam dates, due dates for major projects, and extracurricular events to avoiding overburdening students.

Many of the changes shown above have occurred at the school or district level, but some countries, such as Finland, France, India, and the United Arab Emirates, have instituted changes through government mandate.

Homework and families

The diversity of families makes the practice of homework even more complicated. Parents within the same community may differ in their beliefs about the place of academic work in life. Some parents prioritise academics (wanting more homework), others want a balance of academics and chosen activities such as playing sports, cultural activities or service work, and others, wishing to reduce student stress, prioritise leisure and happiness (wanting less or no homework). There is also a growing parent activism around the world, driven by the role homework plays in student stress levels and an awareness of the need for balance in work, family time, downtime and sleep. Parents are speaking out with concerns about ‘academic stress’ and work/life balance for students and, as a result, are demanding secondary schools reduce the homework workload. 

There are also concerns about homework as an equity issue. Economic differences can entrench privilege as children from wealthier families enjoy ready access to technology, tutors, and educated parents, while children of poverty may lack access to technology, materials, and favourable working conditions.  A study by the OECD [ii] of students from 38 different countries showed that students from higher social classes did more homework than students from lower social classes. More affluent parents are also more likely to help with homework than less affluent parents.  Students living in poverty often need to prioritise family responsibilities, such as paid work or caring for younger siblings, over homework.

In an effort to address the widening economic diversity of families and to accommodate different parental preferences, the following homework practices are gaining popularity in secondary schools:

• Allowing flexibility in when homework is due, moving away from daily homework to homework that may be turned in over several days.
• Differentiating homework—providing resources for students or parents who desire additional work (challenge packets, lists of websites) and allowing other parents to ‘opt out’ of homework, or to choose to limit the amount of time their child spends on homework.
• Providing more time during the school day or after school for students to complete homework. Some schools, especially those in high poverty communities, are extending the school day, so that all homework is completed at school.

The research on homework

The results of research about the benefit of homework to academic achievement are mixed, inconclusive, and sometimes contradictory. These results are not surprising given that homework involves the complex interaction of a number of factors, such as differences in students, teachers, tasks, home environments, measurements of learning, and the unique interaction between homework and classroom learning within individual students [iii] . The pervasive flaw of the early homework research was that it focused almost exclusively on the correlation between time and achievement, with no consideration of the type or quality of the homework task.  That research revealed that, up to a point, the correlation of homework time and secondary achievement appeared positive, but past the optimum amount of time, achievement either remained flat or declined [iv] .

What was the optimum amount of time spent on homework for secondary students? Curiously, the appropriate amount of homework for different year levels was consistent with a longstanding guideline called the 10-minute rule (origin unknown).  The 10-minute rule is a guideline many schools follow that homework should not exceed 10 minutes per year level per night, all subjects combined. That is, a student in year ten should be expected to complete no more than 100 minutes per night, while a student in year twelve should be expected to complete no more than 120 minutes per night [v] .

However, while the 10-minute rule may be helpful as an upper limit, it fails to take into account the quality of the task and differences in students’ working speeds. It is important to remember that correlationof time and achievement is not causation: it is impossible to show that homework causes higher achievement. Correlating time and achievement also ignores many any other variables that may affect achievement. After controlling for motivation, ability, quality of instruction, course work quantity, and some background variables, no meaningful effect of homework on achievement remained [vi] . 

Due to such discrepancies and other flaws in homework studies, researchers disagree as to whether or not homework enhances achievement. While many hold strongly to their assertion that homework is beneficial, others point to newer studies that seem to discount early research. A new generation of homework studies using more sophisticated analyses and controlling for more variables often fail to find a significant relationship between homework time and achievement for secondary students [vii] .

Teachers should view the research through the lens of what they intuitively know about their students and apply the same principles of effective teaching and learning to homework that they would apply to the classroom. Teachers know that organisation and structure of learning matters, that feedback about learning is critical, that the quality of a learning task matters, and that student differences in prior knowledge, skill level, and learning preferences must be considered. Achievement is related not to the amount of homework or the time spent on it, but to the quality of the homework task, the student’s perception of the value of the task, and how interesting the task appears. In other words, task quality is what really matters.

Purposes of homework

If homework is given, it should be purposeful and meaningful, not just given for the sake of assigning homework. Before designing a homework task, teachers must first determine the purpose of the task.  This may include pre-learning, diagnosis, checking for understanding, practice, or processing.

• Pre-learning: traditional preparation homework, such as reading or outlining a chapter before a discussion, was often used as background for a more in-depth lesson. A more engaging use of pre-learning would be to discover what students already know or are most interested in about a topic. One strategy to stimulate interest is to give students a specific question such as ‘Why are covalent bonds important?’ or ‘How and when are subordinating conjunctions used’, and allow them to read whatever they choose to answer the question.
• Diagnosis: how do we design learning if we don’t know where students are?  Diagnostic homework may include pre-tests, a checklist of ‘I can’ statements, or a practice test to assess prerequisite skills. Diagnostic homework saves time—once teachers know where students are in their skills or knowledge, they can plan instruction more efficiently.
• Checking for understanding: this is probably the most neglected use of homework, yet it is the most valuable way for teachers to gain insight into student learning. For instance, journal questions about a science experiment may ask the student to explain what happened and why. Asking students to identify literary devices in a short story shows the teacher whether the student understands literary devices. Asking students to do a few sample problems in math and to explain the steps lets the teacher know if the student understands how to do the problem.
• Practice: the traditional use of homework has been for the practice of rote skills, such as mathematical operations, writing conventions, or scientific processes. Although practice is necessary for many rote skills, there are three mistakes that teachers sometimes make with the use of practice homework. First, teachers may believe they are giving practice homework when, in fact, the student did not understand the concept or skill in class. The homework then actually involves new learning and is often quite frustrating. Second, if teachers skip the step of checking for understanding, students may be practising something incorrectly and internalising misconceptions. For instance, students should practise math operations only after the teacher has adequately checked for understanding. Third, distributed practice is better than mass practice—that is, practice is more effective when distributed over several days. A smart practice for math is two-tiered homework: Part One is three problems to check for understanding of a new skill, and Part Two is 10 problems to practise a skill previously learned.
• Processing. As opposed to rote practice, processing homework asks students to do something new with concepts or skills they have learned – to apply skills, reflect on concepts that were discussed in class, think of new questions to ask, or sythesise information. Processing homework may be a single task such as applying algebraic concepts to solving a complex problem, or a long-term project such as demonstrating the use of figurative language and symbolism by writing an original short story. Processing homework helps students achieve a dexterity of skills by application—making the skill more automatic and more meaningful due to the context.  This application acts as a rehearsal for tertiary education or for more advanced secondary coursework. 

Designing quality homework tasks

Creating quality homework tasks requires attention to four aspects:

Academic purpose — Tasks should communicate a clear academic purpose.

Efficiency — Tasks shouldhelp students reach the learning goal without wasting time or energy.

Competence — Tasks should have a positive effect on a student’s sense of competence. Homework tasks should be designed so that the student can complete the task without adult help.

Ownership — Tasks should be personally relevant and customised to promote ownership [viii] .

Academic purpose: The academic purpose of a homework assignment—prelearning, diagnosis, checking for understanding, practice , or processing—as well as its connection to classroom learning should be clearly communicated to students. Ideally, all homework assignments should show one or more specific learning goals.  Writing out definitions of vocabulary words or taking notes while reading a novel may sound like good homework, but one might question whether those tasks are appropriate to a focus on higher level thinking. Students shouldn’t merely know what Newton’s three laws of motion are – they should show how they are applied in situations such as automobiles or theme park rides. Students shouldn’t merely show how digestion, respiration, and circulation occur – they should show how those processes interact and effect each other.

Efficiency: sometraditional tasksmay be inefficient in terms of time spent—either because they show no evidence of learning or because they take an inordinate amount of time. Is the goal for the student to simply read a 30-page chapter, or is the goal to identify key concepts within the chapter? Does the research paper need to be 10 pages long to demonstrate the learning goals? Teachers often believe that more reinforcement of learning is always desirable, when in fact, for some students, it may not be necessary. Efficiency is what works best for an individual student to reach the learning goal.

Competence: Homework tasks should be designed not only to support classroom learning but also to instill a sense of competence in the learner. In fact, when students feel unsuccessful in approaching homework tasks, they often avoid the tasks completely as a way to protect their self-esteem. Teachers should adjust homework difficulty or the amount of work based on their assessment of the student’s skill level or understanding.

Ownership: When we give students more ownership of the homework task, we make it more efficient and students are more motivated. The ultimate goal of ownership is independent learning, but often secondary school homework is not structured with enough agency to allow for that independence.  Many secondary students still don’t know how to learn on their own or what is the best strategy for them, often because their studying has been tightly prescribed.   Perhaps that is because teachers believe the tasks they prescribe will naturally lead to the learning they desire for all students. But one size does not fit all—students learn in different ways and we should respect those differences. To develop independent learners, we must first empower them to assess their unique learning needs and discover how they learn best.  Then we must give them the freedom to develop their own methods of reaching the learning goals. Allowing secondary students that freedom is important preparation for tertiary education, where homework is often less structured with less guidance and where students are expected to design their own strategies for mastering content and studying for exams.

Student ownership begins with choice. Homework choice can be as limited as ‘pick any 10 of the 30 problems’, as specific as having students work only on learning goals that they are struggling with, or as wide open as a self-selected and self-designed project. Students may not always have a choice about the learning goal, but they can almost always be given some agency in designing the best task for them to reach the goal. Some secondary schools have replaced traditional teacher-prescribed homework with the student’s freedom to choose only the tasks they believe they need to prepare them for the next in-class assessment.

Flipped homework: Flipped homework has the potential not only to be efficient but also to allow for student ownership.  Flipped homework is the practice of delivering direct instruction through instructional video as homework, and then spending class time on application, analysis, and practice (in other words, the video explains quadratic equations, then students work through problems in class). Flipped homework is increasingly popular at the secondary level, especially in communities where all students have internet access. In a survey of more than 2000 K-12 students in the United States currently experiencing flipped homework, 52% reported that flipped homework took less time than traditional homework and 67% reported that the videos made understanding the content ‘easier’ or ‘much easier’ [ix] .  This is not surprising, since videos allow students to pause and repeat instruction as needed. 

Flipping can be made even more efficient by asking students to go beyond watching the video and taking notes. Some teachers ask students to complete a formative assessment about the video. Formative assessments could be to complete a sample problem, answer a few questions to check for understanding, summarise important points, or list questions they have. Some teachers have their students rate their level of understanding of the video as green (I understand), yellow (I am confused on some parts), or red (I don’t understand). That feedback can then be used the next day to group students for follow-up tasks.

Should homework be graded?

Research has shown that effective feedback is one of the most powerful influences on learning [x] . As more secondary schools focus on mastery learning, homework may be increasingly viewed as formative feedback. The current consensus among researchers is that homework’s best use is as formative assessment —assessment for learning that takes place during learning [xi] , in which case the homework would be given feedback but not graded.  Of course, if homework is used as a summative assessment, and the teacher is confident the work was completed independently by the student, it would be reasonable that it would be graded.

If an NCEA assessment is to be set as homework, it is beneficial to students if teachers first prepare them through some explicit instruction and low-stakes assignments (ungraded or weighted lightly) that focus on the development and practice of individual subskills (or knowledge) that are contained within the NCEA task. This might be the research and analytical skills required to complete a research project or the figurative and rhetorical language features needed for a portfolio of different writing genres.   Students would receive targeted formative feedback and be given additional resources as needed to better prepare them for the high-stakes assessment.

Homework is just one part of an overall instructional plan. As our curricula, teaching strategies, and assessment strategies evolve to better meet student needs, so should our homework practices. Only by creating assignments that are effective and equitable can we make homework a valuable part of instruction and learning.

[i] Cooper, H. (2007).  The battle over homework: Common ground for administrators, teachers, and parents. (3 rd edition). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

[ii] Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (2014). Does homework perpetuate inequalities in education?    www.oecd.org/pisa/pisa-2015-results-in-focus.pdf . Retrieved 8-4-17.

[iii] Horsley, M. and Walker, R. (2013). Reforming homework: practices, learning and policy. Melbourne, Victoria, Australia: Palgrave Macmillan.

[iv] Cooper, H. (2007).  The battle over homework: Common ground for administrators, teachers, and parents. (3 rd edition). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

[v] Vatterott, C. (2018). Rethinking homework: Best practices that support diverse needs , 2 nd edition. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD).

[vi] Trautwein, U., & Koller, O. (2003). The relationship between homework and achievement—still much of a mystery. Educational Psychology Review, 15 (2), 115–145.

[vii] Vatterott, C. (2018). Rethinking homework: Best practices that support diverse needs , 2 nd edition. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD).

[viii] Vatterott, C. (2010).  Five hallmarks of good homework.  Educational Leadership, 68(1), 10-15.

[ix] Bergman, J. (2017). Solving the homework problem by flipping the learning. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

[x] Hattie, J. (2009). Visible learning .  London: Routledge.

[xi] Vatterott, C. (2018). Rethinking homework: Best practices that support diverse needs , 2 nd edition. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD).

By Dr. Cathy Vatterott

PREPARED FOR THE EDUCATION HUB BY

Dr. Cathy Vatterott

Dr. Cathy Vatterott is Professor Emeritus of Education at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, and a former teacher and school principal. She is the author of four books, most recently Rethinking Homework: Best Practices That Support Diverse Needs, 2nd edition (ASCD, 2018), and Rethinking Grading: Meaningful Assessment for Standards Based Learning (ASCD, 2015). She frequently presents at national conferences and serves as a consultant and workshop presenter for K-12 schools on homework, grading practices, and teen stress. Dr. Vatterott has been researching, writing, and speaking about K-12 homework in the United States, Canada, and Europe for over 20 years and is considered an international expert on homework. She first became interested in homework in the late 1990s as the frustrated parent of a 5th grader with learning disabilities. Her work with schools has been the catalyst for her latest research on teen stress.

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Maths homework for secondary

Australia and new zealand, international schools, tes resources team.

Whether you're looking for homework tasks to consolidate learning that has taken place, or to gain an understanding of where your students may need a little more support, we've drawn together a collection of resources you can use throughout the year. From shorter activities and differentiated worksheets to termly homework booklets, why not take a look at what the Tes community has to offer? 

Looking for GCSE or IGCSE maths resources? Explore the GCSE/IGCSE revision hub.

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Top 4 Online Homework Platforms

Schools and teachers are increasingly going online to find tools that can assist you in the classroom. However, due to the fast-paced educational technology space, it has become difficult to identify the best learning tools. We’ve therefore composed the top 4 online homework and revision platforms for primary and secondary schools.

1. Seneca Learning & Revision

Seneca is used by 5 million+ KS3, KS4, GCSE and A level students. Several neuroscience principles are baked into the platform’s algorithm that showcases and repeats questions in a way that lets students learn two times faster compared to standard revision guides. The repetition happens with calculated intervals to help students memorise the subject better. The learning platform does not only increase the students' engagement but has also scientifically proven to let students learn two times faster.

Create a free Seneca account

The benefits of Seneca are:

• The platform is free to use for students and teachers
• Covers 1000+ KS2, KS3, GCSE and A Level courses across all exam boards
• A free teacher platform with assignments and study insights
• Proven to let students learn 2x faster ( source )
• Increased study engagement due to the engaging learning modules

2. Show my Homework

An online homework calendar that includes all the assignment information such as descriptions, deadlines, and attachments for students. It’s quite an easy way for you to schedule homework and for students to manage their submission. By linking Seneca’s study platform in the assignment description you can easily guide your students to their assignment page. This is the link you can use to link any assignment from ShowMyHomework to Seneca: https://app.senecalearning.com/dashboard/classes/assignments

3. Google Classroom

The best parts of the Google product are its convenience and that it’s completely for free. Google promotes a very clear vision of providing free educational services without showing any ads nor gathering or using student data. When using Google Classroom you’ll instantly see that you and your students will use much less paperwork as everything can be easily stored and shared on the Drive. You can log into Seneca with your Google Classroom email address as well as combine Google Classroom and Seneca by inviting your students into your Seneca class via the student invite option.

GCSEpod is targeted for GCSE students. At the core of the platform lie 3-5 minute bursts of audio-visual learning in which subject knowledge specialists cover specific topics. These videos are named “Pods” and cover every exam board at KS4 level. In contrast to Seneca, GCSEpod only offers subscriptions starting at £200 annually. Around 1300 schools are using GCSEpod making it the smallest platform of the four.

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Homework: is it worth the hassle?

Parents and educators question the value of setting assignments for students. But what does the neuroscience say?

Like all teachers, I’ve spent many hours correcting homework. Yet there’s a debate over whether we should be setting it at all.

I teach both primary and secondary, and regularly find myself drawn into the argument on the reasoning behind it – parents, and sometimes colleagues, question its validity. Parent-teacher interviews can become consumed by how much trouble students have completing assignments. All of which has led me to question the neuroscience behind setting homework. Is it worth it?

Increasingly, there’s a divide between those who support the need for homework and those who suggest the time would be better spent with family and developing relationships. The anxiety related to homework is frequently reviewed.

A survey of high-performing high schools by the Stanford Graduate School of Education, for example, found that 56% of students considered homework a primary source of stress. These same students reported that the demands of homework caused sleep deprivation and other health problems, as well as less time for friends, family and extracurricular pursuits.

Working memory?

When students learn in the classroom, they are using their short-term or working memory. This information is continually updated during the class. On leaving the classroom, the information in the working memory is replaced by the topic in the next class.

Adults experience a similar reaction when they walk into a new room and forget why they are there. The new set of sensory information – lighting, odours, temperature – enters their working memory and any pre-existing information is displaced. It’s only when the person returns to the same environment that they remember the key information.

But education is about more than memorising facts. Students need to access the information in ways that are relevant to their world, and to transfer knowledge to new situations.

Many of us will have struggled to remember someone’s name when we meet them in an unexpected environment (a workmate at the gym, maybe), and we are more likely to remember them again once we’ve seen them multiple times in different places. Similarly, students must practise their skills in different environments.

Revising the key skills learned in the classroom during homework increases the likelihood of a student remembering and being able to use those skills in a variety of situations in the future, contributing to their overall education.

The link between homework and educational achievement is supported by research: a meta-analysis of studies between 1987 and 2003 found that: “With only rare exceptions, the relationship between the amount of homework students do and their achievement outcomes was found to be positive and statistically significant.”

The right type of work

The homework debate is often split along the lines of primary school compared with secondary school. Education researcher Professor John Hattie, who has ranked various influences on student learning and achievement, found that homework in primary schools has a negligible effect (most homework set has little to no impact on a student’s overall learning). However, it makes a bigger difference in secondary schools.

His explanation is that students in secondary schools are often given tasks that reinforce key skills learned in the classroom that day, whereas primary students may be asked to complete separate assignments. “The worst thing you can do with homework is give kids projects; the best thing you can do is reinforce something you’ve already learned,” he told the BBC in 2014.

So homework can be effective when it’s the right type of homework. In my own practice, the primary students I teach will often be asked to find real-life examples of the concept taught instead of traditional homework tasks, while homework for secondary students consolidates the key concepts covered in the classroom. For secondary in particular, I find a general set of rules useful:

• Set work that’s relevant. This includes elaborating on information addressed in the class or opportunities for students to explore the key concept in areas of their own interest.
• Make sure students can complete the homework. Pitch it to a student’s age and skills – anxiety will only limit their cognitive abilities in that topic. A high chance of success will increase the reward stimulation in the brain.
• Get parents involved, without the homework being a point of conflict with students. Make it a sharing of information, rather than a battle.
• Check the homework with the students afterwards. This offers a chance to review the key concepts and allow the working memory to become part of the long-term memory.

While there is no data on the effectiveness of homework in different subjects, these general rules could be applied equally to languages, mathematics or humanities. And by setting the right type of homework, you’ll help to reinforce key concepts in a new environment, allowing the information you teach to be used in a variety of contexts in the future.

Helen Silvester is a writer for npj Science of Learning Community

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31st August 2016

Secondary School

Welcome to our page explaining all about Secondary School!

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New school, new friends!

Hopefully, you now know which school you’re going to. If it wasn’t your first choice, then see the article below, labelled “Didn’t get your first choice?”

Leavers Trip

You might have already had it, but most schools have a Leavers Trip. It could be anywhere, but I’m guessing you’ll be staying over there!

Didn’t get your first choice?

Thousands of 11-year-olds across the United Kingdom don’t get their first choice school. You can appeal to get a place in that school, but only a third of appeals are successful. But there is a chance!

Saying goodbye

It’s hard saying goodbye to what you’ve known for seven odd years. But, as of April 23rd, you have got one more term left at your school, so make the most of it.

SATS happen at the end of every key-stage (you might remember having one at the end of Year 2!) Do revise for this test as it will play a big role on what sets you’ll be in for secondary school. Friends Friends may be an important part of your life, and moving up to secondary school might mean that you have to say goodbye to those friends. But, secondary school is a fresh new start and a time to make new friends. But that doesn’t mean you can’t keep in touch with the old ones. You’ve got just over half a term left to get their contact details so you can contact them in future

External Links

CBBC Newsround Secondary School Advice from Year 8s CBBC’s “Our School” page SafetyNet’s Top Tips for Surviving Year 7 Your Secondary School Questions Answered

School homework: Does it have any benefit at all?

One of the lessons of the past year is that children need different types of learning.

‘We need to be far more creative about how we assess ability and we need to be far more inclusive of different skill-sets,’ says psychotherapist Dr Colman Noctor. Photograph: iStock

When the children returned to school last September I dared to dream, for the short while I was allowed, that homework might be a thing of the past. Our afternoons and evenings were our own, the kids were more content going to school in spite of all the necessary changes, and things were certainly less fractious around the dining-room table. Had the pandemic finally seen off the one thing that many parents had longed to see the back of for years?

Alas, it was not to be. Just a few short weeks later, the dreaded homework returned – and, with it, the familiar dip in the afternoon mood.

As my troops returned in staggered sequence to school this time around, excitement levels were just as high as last September. They’d missed their friends, teachers, classroom learning and routine. In fact they’d missed every single thing about school except homework. The time, however, there was no homework honeymoon period.

There's nothing any more to suggest that the kind of homework we were getting when we were in school is in any way beneficial at all for the children who are doing it

With many parents, teachers and mental health professionals against the idea of homework for primary-school children, you’d have to wonder why we continue with it at all.

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"Tradition is the simple answer" says Simon Lewis, principal of Carlow Educate Together school. "People don't like the absence of something that's been going on for a long time.

“There’s just nothing any more to suggest that the kind of homework we were getting when we were in school is in any way beneficial at all for the children who are doing it. Much like everything else in education, we either have to evolve what we’re doing to suit the needs of today or we have to scrap things that make no sense any more.”

Instead of the traditional homework we’ve come to know and loathe, Lewis would rather see children “getting good at whatever floats their boat”.

“You’ve got people who’d be very traditional and conservative in their views and have lots of arguments as to why we should keep homework. I spend a lot of my time debunking all those myths.”

One such myth, Lewis says, is the argument that homework is good at preparing pupils for secondary school. “It’s a very weak argument. Even logically it makes no sense.” He dismisses the notion that “a child isn’t going to know what to do because they didn’t have eight years of it previously”. Otherwise no child would be capable of taking up a new foreign language at secondary school, for example.

Anything that tends to their mental health is where I want to be focusing my energy this year, and that doesn't include homework

“I get asked about reading. That’s always a counterargument, and it’s probably the best counterargument that I’ve heard. But, again, everybody doing the same thing, everybody reading the same thing, just doesn’t make any sense, because children have different interests; children have different levels of reading. Even families have different interests.”

Lewis has banned spellings and tables at his school, because “there are so many better ways to learn, and learning lists of things off by heart is no way”. He says that there are benefits to parents being kept up to date with what’s going on in school but that the apps used during remote learning facilitate this. “I’d like to think that most schools have now reasonably well-established models for contacting parents.”

Lewis believes his feelings about homework are common among principals. He gave a presentation a couple of years ago at the Irish Primary Principals Network conference, he says, where a straw poll was done. More than 90 per cent of principals said they would get rid of homework immediately if they could. “I think we’re just waiting for somebody to pull the plug on it, but we’d have to be backed up to do it, because it’s so emotive.”

Emer O’Connor says homework for her children will “typically take an hour”. “Although teachers say the homework should only take a short amount of time, this is not my experience. The children are tired and distracted.

“The homework is usually the same every day, so they are not excited about it. It’s a chore that just has to be done, and the parent is the one who has to cajole, pressure, force, bribe, etc. It drives a wedge between parents and their children and has a negative effect on their relationships,” she says.

“They need this time outside more now than they ever did before. They are sitting at their desks more. Classroom movement is hugely restricted. There are more rules to adhere to. They have no drama, music, playball or GAA. Even outside school their activities are curtailed due to Covid.

“The very last thing I want to do when they come home from school is to tell them that they have to sit back down again at the table to do more work. Now more than ever we are being encouraged to tend to our children’s mental health. Anything that tends to their mental health is where I want to be focusing my energy this year, and that doesn’t include homework.”

O’Connor says she would love to see schools look at this “with fresh eyes and make it something that works for our school and our families”.

Taoiseach Micheál Martin has said there will be no homework for children on April 12th. While it’s a start, Starcamp summer-camp owner Aideen O’Grady says she “strongly and categorically believes” it’s time for homework to become a thing of the past for primary-school children.

Parents and students have had enough of kitchen-table schoolwork this year – the focus between Easter and summer should be on wellbeing

“By the time they get home from school, at around 3 or 3.30pm, they eat, and then it’s straight out with the books until dinner time, by when they are exhausted. It’s often stressful, tiring and repetitive.

“Children should be allowed to be children. To simply play, to engage in sport, to be challenged and to challenge, to use their imaginations, to create, to listen to music, to be at one with nature, to find fun, to push boundaries, to find themselves, to lose themselves, to be with their friends, to climb trees, build fairy gardens or forts, to find solutions to real life situations, to fall and pick themselves up, to learn to think outside the box, to communicate more, chat with parents, grandparents, neighbours, to find out who they are, where their talents lie and what they love about life.”

O’Grady says not enough emphasis is put on balance for children. “If this pandemic has taught us anything, it’s to enjoy life as much as we can – and this should include children, who have suffered enough. Sometimes people keep doing what has always been done, without evaluation or an upgrade. Homework is one of those things that has gone without change for far too long. Has anyone stepped up and truly reconsidered the benefits of children being free for what is only a few hours after school?”

Dr Colman Noctor, a child and adolescent psychotherapist, says he does not see the purpose of starting homework "so early and so stringently" and believes homework at primary school at the moment is not a good idea. "Parents and students have had enough of kitchen-table schoolwork this year – the focus between Easter and summer should be on wellbeing.

“I work off a cost-benefit-analysis philosophy, and while the benefits are minimal for some, the costs of homework are great for others. I am fully aware that my role as a psychotherapist means my view is skewed by the fact that I only hear about the problems with most things, but the stories from parents and children about homework are unanimously negative. The argument and stress that these tasks cause some families is phenomenal.

“What I have learned is that ... lots of homework stresses the studious, conscientious child out and causes the unenthusiastic child to opt out.”

Noctor believes there are lessons to be taken from the pandemic and school closures. “What the last year has taught us is that our education system is a very narrow measurement which rewards the child who is engaged, well-supported and has a proclivity for rote learning and a good memory. What we have also learned is that if you are not that type of learner, then tough luck.

“We need to be far more ambitious about what we understand learning to be. We need to be far more creative about how we assess ability, and we need to be far more inclusive of different skill sets. For me, homework and the traditional Leaving Cert are borne out of the same ideology, one that values compliance over engagement.”

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Homework policy: examples

See examples of homework policies from primary, secondary and special schools to help you write your own. also, adapt our sample clause for handling the impact of ai tools on homework., primary school, secondary school, special school, multi-academy trust, sample ai clause.

Shadwell Primary School in Leeds has a homework policy that covers:

• When pupils take books home for reading
• How long they should spend reading at home
• English and maths homework
• Spelling and times tables expectations
• Additional half-termly homework tasks, such as a learning log and key instant recall facts
• Instances when pupils may receive additional homework
• How homework will be recorded
• Rewards and sanctions

Chelmsford County High School for Girls in Essex has a school-wide homework policy setting out:

• The importance of homework
• Types of homework that could be set
• How much time different year groups should spend on homework

North Ridge High School in Manchester has a homework policy that explains:

• How homework may differ in form, expectations and outcomes
• How long the school recommends pupils spend on homework
• The roles of the class teacher, leadership team and governing board, and parents and carers
• The homework that different Key Stages and learners will get
• Marking, feedback and pupil absence

The policy also includes a homework timetable.

STEP Academy Trust has homework policies set for its schools that are agreed by the board of trustees. Each policy has been adapted slightly for each school.

To find the homework policies , scroll down in the 'Policy' search box in the top-right corner, and select 'STEP homework policy' – you'll see a list with links to homework policies for each of the trust's schools.

The DfE has advised that you may wish to review your homework policy to consider the impact of generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools (such as ChatGPT and Google Bard) on homework and unsupervised work. 

Adapt our example text below to suit your school's context and approach to AI.

Primary schools

Secondary schools.

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Transitioning from primary to secondary school is a particularly significant change for children. Learning about change and how to cope with it will help them with this particular transition and prepare them for many other changes and challenges they will face in life.

To support school staff, we've created a webinar that focuses on how you can help your pupils through the change from primary to secondary school.

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• Open access
• Published: 13 May 2024

The impact of the world’s first regulatory, multi-setting intervention on sedentary behaviour among children and adolescents (ENERGISE): a natural experiment evaluation

• Bai Li   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-2706-9799 1 ,
• Selene Valerino-Perea 2 ,
• Weiwen Zhou 3 ,
• Yihong Xie 4 ,
• Keith Syrett 5 ,
• Remco Peters 1 ,
• Zouyan He 4 ,
• Yunfeng Zou 4 ,
• Frank de Vocht 6 , 7 &
• Charlie Foster 1  

International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity volume  21 , Article number:  53 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

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Regulatory actions are increasingly used to tackle issues such as excessive alcohol or sugar intake, but such actions to reduce sedentary behaviour remain scarce. World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines on sedentary behaviour call for system-wide policies. The Chinese government introduced the world’s first nation-wide multi-setting regulation on multiple types of sedentary behaviour in children and adolescents in July 2021. This regulation restricts when (and for how long) online gaming businesses can provide access to pupils; the amount of homework teachers can assign to pupils according to their year groups; and when tutoring businesses can provide lessons to pupils. We evaluated the effect of this regulation on sedentary behaviour safeguarding pupils.

With a natural experiment evaluation design, we used representative surveillance data from 9- to 18-year-old pupils before and after the introduction of the regulation, for longitudinal ( n  = 7,054, matched individuals, primary analysis) and repeated cross-sectional ( n  = 99,947, exploratory analysis) analyses. We analysed pre-post differences for self-reported sedentary behaviour outcomes (total sedentary behaviour time, screen viewing time, electronic device use time, homework time, and out-of-campus learning time) using multilevel models, and explored differences by sex, education stage, residency, and baseline weight status.

Longitudinal analyses indicated that pupils had reduced their mean total daily sedentary behaviour time by 13.8% (95% confidence interval [CI]: -15.9 to -11.7%, approximately 46 min) and were 1.20 times as likely to meet international daily screen time recommendations (95% CI: 1.01 to 1.32) one month after the introduction of the regulation compared to the reference group (before its introduction). They were on average 2.79 times as likely to meet the regulatory requirement on homework time (95% CI: 2.47 to 3.14) than the reference group and reduced their daily total screen-viewing time by 6.4% (95% CI: -9.6 to -3.3%, approximately 10 min). The positive effects were more pronounced among high-risk groups (secondary school and urban pupils who generally spend more time in sedentary behaviour) than in low-risk groups (primary school and rural pupils who generally spend less time in sedentary behaviour). The exploratory analyses showed comparable findings.

Conclusions

This regulatory intervention has been effective in reducing total and specific types of sedentary behaviour among Chinese children and adolescents, with the potential to reduce health inequalities. International researchers and policy makers may explore the feasibility and acceptability of implementing regulatory interventions on sedentary behaviour elsewhere.

The growing prevalence of sedentary behaviour in school-aged children and adolescents bears significant social, economic and health burdens in China and globally [ 1 ]–[ 3 ]. Sedentary behaviour refers to any waking behaviour characterised by an energy expenditure equal or lower than 1.5 metabolic equivalents (METs) while sitting, reclining, or lying [ 3 ]. Evidence from systematic reviews, meta-analyses and longitudinal studies have shown that excessive sedentary behaviour, in particular recreational screen-based sedentary behaviour, affect multiple dimensions of children and adolescents’ wellbeing, spanning across mental health [ 4 ], cognitive functions/developmental health/academic performance [ 5 ], [ 6 ], quality of life [ 7 ], and physical health [ 8 ]. In China, over 60% of school pupils use part of their sleep time to play mobile phones/digital games and watch TV programmes, and 27% use their sleep time to do homework or other learning activities [ 9 ]. Screen-based, sedentary entertainment has become the leading cause for going to bed late, which is linked to detrimental consequences for children’s physical and mental health [ 10 ]. Notably, academic-related activities such as post-school homework and off campus tutoring also contribute to the increasing amounts of sedentary behaviour. According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) report, China is the leading country in time spent on homework by adolescents (14 h/week on average) [ 11 ].

The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated this global challenge, with children and adolescents reported to have been the most affected group [ 12 ]. Schools are a frequently targeted setting for interventions to reduce sedentary behaviour [ 13 ]. However, school-based interventions have had limited success when delivered under real-world conditions or at scale [ 14 ]. School-based interventions alone have also been unsuccessful in mitigating the trend of increasing sedentary behaviour that is driven by a complex system of interdependent factors across multiple sectors [ 13 ]. Even for parents and carers who intend to restrict screen-based sedentary behaviour and for children who wish to reduce screen-based sedentary behaviour, social factors including peer pressure often form barriers to changing behaviour [ 15 ]. In multiple public health fields such as tobacco control and healthy eating promotion, there has been a notable shift away from downstream (e.g., health education) towards an upstream intervention approach (e.g., sugar taxation). However, regulatory actions for sedentary behaviour are scarce [ 16 ]. World Health Organization (WHO) 2020 guidelines on sedentary behaviour encourage sustainable and scalable approaches for limiting sedentary behaviour and call for more system-wide policies to improve this global challenge [ 8 ]. Up-stream interventions can act on sedentary behaviour more holistically and have the potential to maximise reach and health impact [ 13 ]. In response to this pressing issue, and to widespread demands from many parents/carers, the Chinese government introduced nationwide regulations in 2021 to restrict (i) the amount of homework that teachers can assign, (ii) when (and for how long) online gaming businesses can provide access to young people, and (iii) when tutoring businesses can provide lessons [ 17 ], [ 18 ]. Consultations with WHO officials and reviewers of international health policy interventions confirmed that this is currently the only government-led, multi-setting regulatory intervention on multiple types of sedentary behaviour among school-aged children and adolescents. A detailed description of this programme is available in the Additional File 1 .

We evaluated the impact of this regulatory intervention on sedentary behaviour in Chinese school-aged children and adolescents. We also investigated whether and how intervention effects differed by sex, education stage, geographical area, and baseline weight status.

Study design

The introduction of the nationwide regulation provided a unique opportunity for a natural experiment evaluation where the pre-regulation comparator group data (Wave 1) was compared to the post-regulation group data (Wave 2). Multiple components of the intervention (see Additional File 1 ) were introduced in phases from July 2021 with all components being fully in place by September 2021 [ 17 ], [ 18 ]. This paper follows the STROBE reporting guidance [ 19 ], [ 20 ].

Data source, study population and sampling

We obtained regionally representative data on 99,947 pupils who are resident in the Chinese province of Guangxi as part of Guangxi Centre for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) routine surveillance. The data, available from participants in grade 4 (aged between 9 and 10 years) and higher, were collected using a multi-stage random sampling design (Fig.  1 ) through school visits by trained health professionals following standardised protocols (see Supplementary Fig.  1 , Additional File 1 ). In Wave 1 (data collected from September to November 2020), pupils were randomly selected from schools in 31 urban/rural counties from 14 cities in Guangxi. At least eight schools, including primary, secondary, high schools, and ‘vocational high schools’, were selected from urban counties. Five schools were selected from rural counties. Approximately 80 students were randomly selected from each grade at the schools selected. The same schools were invited to participate in Wave 2 (data collected from September to November 2021), and new schools were invited to replace Wave 1 schools that no longer participated. Children with available data at both Wave 1 and Wave 2 represented approximately 10% of the sample ( n  = 7,587). Paper-based questionnaires were administrated to students by trained personnel or teachers. The questionnaires were designed and validated by China National Health Commission, and have been utilised in routine surveillance throughout the country.

Flow diagram of participants included in the ENERGISE study

We used data from the age groups 7–18 years for most analyses. For specific analyses of homework and out-of-campus tutoring, we excluded high school pupils (16–18 years) because the homework and out-of-campus tutoring regulations apply to primary (7–12 years) and middle (13–15 years) school pupils only. Furthermore, participants without socio-demographic data or those who reported medical history of disease, or a physical disability were excluded. This gave us a total sample of 7,054 eligible school-aged children and adolescents with matching data (longitudinal sample).

Outcomes and subgroups

Guangxi CDC used purposively designed questions for surveillance purposes to assess sedentary behaviour outcomes (Table  1 ).

The primary outcomes of interest included: (1) total sedentary behaviour time, (2) homework time, (3) out-of-campus learning (private tutoring) time, and (4) electronic device use time (Table  1 ). We considered electronic device use time, including mobile phones, handheld game consoles, and tablets, the most suitable estimator of online game time (estimand) in the surveillance programme since these are the main devices used for online gaming in China [ 23 ]. Secondary outcomes were: (1) total screen-viewing time, (2) internet-use time, (3) likelihood of meeting international screen-viewing time recommendations, and (4) likelihood of meeting the regulation on homework time (Table  1 ).

We calculated total sedentary behaviour time as the sum of total screen-viewing time (secondary outcome), homework time, and out-of-campus learning time (Table  1 ). Total screen-viewing time represents the sum of electronic device use time per day, TV/video game use time per day, and computer use time per day (Table  1 ). Total screen-viewing time was considered as an alternative estimator of online game time (estimand) since TV/videogame console use time and computer time could also capture the small proportion of children who use these devices for online gaming (Table  1 ). The international screen-viewing time recommendations were based on the American Academy of Paediatrics guidelines [ 21 ]. We did not include internet use time (secondary outcome) in total screen-viewing time, and total sedentary behaviour time, because this measure likely overlaps with other variables.

We defined subgroups by demographic characteristics, including the child’s sex (at birth: girls or boys), date of birth, education stage [primary school or secondary school [including middle school, high school, and ‘occupational schools’]), children’s residency (urban versus rural) and children’s baseline weight status (non-overweight versus overweight/obesity). Each sampling site selected for the survey was classified by the surveillance personnel as urban/rural and as lower-, medium-, or higher-economic level based on the area’s gross domestic product (GDP) per capita. The area’s GDP per capita was measured by the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Trained personnel also measured height, and weight using calibrated stadiometers and scales. Children’s weight/height were measured with light clothing and no shoes. Measurements during both waves were undertaken when students lived a normal life (no lockdowns, school were opened normally). We classified weight status (normal weight vs. overweight/obesity) according to the Chinese national reference charts [ 24 ].

Statistical analyses

We treated sedentary behaviour values that exceeded 24-hours per day as missing. We did not exclude extreme values for body mass index from the analyses 25 . Additional information, justifications, and results of implausible and missing values can be found in the Supplementary Table 1 , Additional File 1 .

The assumptions for normality and heteroscedasticity were assessed visually by inspecting residuals. We assessed multicollinearity via variance inflation factors. The outcome variables for linear regression outcomes were transformed using square roots to meet assumptions. We reported descriptive demographic characteristics (age, sex, area of residence, socioeconomic status), weight status, and outcome variables using means (or medians for non-normally distributed data) and proportions [ 26 ]

We ran multilevel models with random effects nested at the school and child levels to compare the outcomes in Wave 1 against Wave 2. We developed separate models for each sedentary behaviour outcome variable. We treated the introduction of the nationwide regulation as the independent binary variable (0 for Wave 1 and 1 for Wave 2). We ran linear models for continuous outcomes, logistic models for binary outcomes, and ordered logistic models for ordinal outcomes in a complete case analysis estimating population average treatment effects [ 27 ]. For the main analysis, in which participants had measurements in both Waves (longitudinal sample), only those with non-missing data at both time points were included.

We estimated marginal effects for each sedentary behaviour outcome. With a self-developed directed acyclic graph (DAG) we identified age (continuous), sex (male/female), area of residence (urban/rural), and socioeconomic status (high/medium/low) as confounders (see Supplementary Figs. 2–4, Additional File 1 ).

We evaluated subgroup effects defined by child’s sex at birth (boys versus girls), child’s stage of education (primary school versus secondary school [including middle school, high school, and ‘occupational schools’]), children’s residency (rural versus urban), and children’s baseline weight status (non-overweight versus overweight/obesity). We also repeated the covariate-adjusted model with interaction terms (between Wave and sex; Wave and child stage of education; Wave and residency; and Wave and weight status). We adjusted for multiple testing using Bonferroni correction ( p 0.05 divided by the number of performed tests for an outcome). The resulting cut-off point of p  < 0.005 was used to determine the presence of any interaction effects.

We also conducted exploratory analyses (including subgroup analyses) by evaluating the same models with a representative, cross-sectional sample of 99,947 pupils. This cross-sectional sample included different schools and children at Wave 1 and Wave 2. We therefore used propensity score (PS) weighting to account for sample imbalances in the socio-demographic characteristics. Propensity scores were calculated by conducting a logistic regression, which calculated the likelihood of each individual to be in Wave 2 (dependent variable). Individual’s age, sex, area of residence and the GDP per area were treated as independent variables. Subsequently, inverse probability of treatment weighting was applied to balance the demographic characteristics in the sample in Wave 1 (unexposed to the regulatory intervention) and Wave 2 (exposed to the regulatory intervention). The sample weight for individuals in Wave 1 were calculated using the Eq. 1/ (1-propensity score). The sample weight for individuals in Wave 2 were calculated using the Eq. 1/propensity score [ 28 ].

We only ran linear models for continuous outcomes since it was not possible to run PS-weighted multilevel models with this sample size in Stata. We conducted all statistical analyses in Stata version 16.0.

Participant sample

In our primary, longitudinal analyses, we analysed data from 7,054 children and adolescents. The mean age was 12.3 years (SD, 2.4) and 3,477 (49.3%) were girls (Table  2 ). More detailed information on characteristics of subgroups in the longitudinal sample are presented in the Supplementary Tables 2–5, Additional File 2 .

Primary outcomes

Children and adolescents reported a reduction in their daily mean total sedentary behaviour time by 13.8% (95% CI: -15.9 to -11.7), or 46 min, on average between Waves 1 and 2. Participants were also less likely to report having increased their time spent on homework (adjusted odd ratio/AOR: 0.39; 95% CI: 0.35–0.43) and in out-of-campus learning (AOR: 0.53; 95% CI: 0.47 to 0.59) in Wave 2 in comparison to Wave 1, respectively (Tables  3 and 4 ). We did not find any changes in electronic device use time.

Secondary outcomes

Participants reported reducing their mean daily screen-viewing time by 6.4% (95% CI: -9.6 to -3.3%), or 10 min, on average (Tables  3 and 4 ). Participants were also 20% as likely to meet international screen time recommendations (AOR: 1.20; 95% CI: 1.09 to 1.32) and were 2.79 times as likely to meet the regulatory requirement on homework time (95% CI: 2.47 to 3.14) compared to the reference group (before the introduction of the regulation).

Subgroup analyses

Most screen- and study-related sedentary behaviour outcomes differed by education stage ( p  < 0.005) (see Supplementary Tables 6–13, Additional File 2 ), with the reductions being larger in secondary school pupils than in primary school pupils (Tables  3 and 4 , and Table  5 ). Only secondary school pupils reduced their total screen-viewing time (-8.4%; 95% CI: -12.4 to -4.3) and were also 1.41 times as likely to meet screen-viewing recommendations (AOR: 1.41; 95% CI: 1.23 to 1.61) at Wave 2 compared to Wave 1.

Conversely, at Wave 2, primary school pupils reported a lower likelihood of spending more time doing homework (AOR: 0.30; 95%: 0.26 to 0.34) than secondary school pupils (AOR: 0.58; 95% CI: 0.50 to 0.67) compared to their counterparts at Wave 1. At Wave 2, primary school pupils also had a higher likelihood of reporting meeting homework time recommendations (AOR: 3.61; 95% CI: 3.09 to 4.22) than secondary school pupils (middle- and high school) (AOR: 2.11; 95% CI: 1.74 to 2.56) compared to their counterparts at Wave 1 (Table  5 ). There was also a residence interaction effect ( p  < 0.001) in total sedentary behaviour time, with participants in urban areas reporting larger reductions (-15.3%; 95% CI: -17.8 to -12.7) than those in rural areas (-11.2%; 95% CI: -15.0 to -7.4). There was no evidence of modifying effects by children’s sex or baseline weight status (Tables  4 and 5 ).

Findings from the exploratory repeated cross-sectional analyses were similar to the findings of the main longitudinal analyses including total sedentary behaviour time, electronic device use time, total screen-viewing time and internet use time (see Supplementary Tables 14–23, Additional File 2 ).

Principal findings

Our study evaluated the impact of the world’s first regulatory, multi-setting intervention on multiple types of sedentary behaviour among school-aged children and adolescents in China. We found that children and adolescents reduced their total sedentary behaviour time, screen-viewing time, homework time and out-of-campus learning time following its implementation. The positive intervention effects on total screen-viewing time (-8.4 vs. -2.3%), and the likelihood of meeting recommendations on screen-viewing time (1.41 vs. 1.02 AOR) were more pronounced in secondary school pupils compared with primary school pupils. Intervention effects on total sedentary behaviour time (-15.3 vs. -11.2%) were more pronounced among pupils living in the urban area (compared to pupils living in the rural area). These subgroup differences imply that the regulatory intervention benefit more the groups known to have a higher rate of sedentary behaviour [ 29 ].

Interestingly, the observed reduction in electronic device use itself did not reach statistical significance following implementation of regulation. This could be viewed as a positive outcome if this is correctly inferred and not the result of reporting bias or measurement error. International data indicated that average sedentary and total screen time have increased among children due to the COVID-19 pandemic [ 12 ]. However, such interesting finding might be explained by the absence of lockdowns in Guangxi during both surveillance waves when most school-aged students outside China were affected by pandemic mitigation measures such as online learning.

Strengths and weaknesses

Our study has several notable strengths. This is the first study to evaluate the impact of multi-setting nationwide regulations on multiple types of sedentary behaviour in a large and regionally representative sample of children and adolescents. Still, to gain a more comprehensive view of the regulatory intervention on sedentary behaviour across China, similar evaluation research should be conducted in other regions of China. Furthermore, access to a rich longitudinal dataset allowed for more robust claims of causality. The available data also allowed us to measure the effect of the intervention on multiple sedentary behaviours including recreational screen-time and academic-related behaviours. Lastly, the large data set allowed us to explore whether the effect of the regulatory intervention varied across important subgroups, suggesting areas for further research and development.

Some limitations need to be taken into consideration when interpreting our findings. First, a common limitation in non-controlled/non-randomised intervention studies is residual confounding. We aimed to limit this by adjusting our analysis for confounders known to impact the variables of interest, but it is impossible to know whether important confounding may still have been present. With maturation bias, it is possible that secular trends are the cause for any observed effects. However, this seems unlikely in our study as older children may spend more time doing homework [ 23 ] and engage more in screen-viewing activities [ 30 ]. In this study, we observed reductions in these outcomes. The use of self-reported outcomes (social desirability bias) was a limitation and might have led to the intervention effects being over-estimated [ 13 ]. However, since our data were collected as part of a routine surveillance programme, pupils were unaware of the evaluation. This might mitigate reporting bias. In addition, the data were collected in Guangxi which might not representative of the whole population in China. Another limitation is using electronic device use time as a proxy measure of online gaming time. It is possible that electronic devices can be used for other purposes. However, mobile phones, handheld game consoles and tablets are the main devices used for online gaming. In this study, electronic device use time provided a practical means of assessing the broad effects of regulatory measures on screen time behaviours, including online gaming, in a large (province level) surveillance programme. In the future, instruments specifically designed to capture online gaming behaviour should be used in surveillance and research work.

Comparisons with other studies

Neither China nor other countries globally have previously implemented and evaluated multi-setting regulatory interventions on multiple types of sedentary behaviour, which makes comparative discussions challenging. In general, results of health behaviour research over the past decades have shown that interventions that address structural and environmental determinants of multiple behaviours to be more effective in comparison with individual-focussed interventions [ 31 ]. Furthermore, the continuous and universal elements of regulatory interventions may be particularly important explanations for the observed reductions in sedentary behaviour. Standalone school and other institution-led interventions may struggle with financial and logistic costs which threaten long-term implementation [ 13 ]. In contrast, the universality element of regulatory intervention can reduce or remove peer pressures and potential stigmatisation among children and teachers that are often associated with more selective/targeted interventions [ 24 ]. Our findings support WHO guidelines for physical activity and sedentary behaviour that encourage sustainable and scalable approaches for limiting sedentary behaviour and call for more system-wide policies to improve this global challenge[ 8 ].

Implications for future policy and research

Our study has important implications for future research and practice both nationally and internationally. Within China, future research should focus on optimising the implementation of the regulatory intervention through implementation research and assess long-term effects of the regulation on both behavioral and health outcomes. Internationally, our findings also provide a promising policy avenue for other countries and communities outside of China to explore the opportunities and barriers to implement such programmes on sedentary behaviour. This exploratory process could start with assessing how key stakeholders (including school-aged children, parents/carers, schoolteachers, health professionals, and policy makers) within different country contexts perceive regulatory actions as an intervention approach for improving health and wellbeing in young people, and how they can be tailored to fit their own contexts. Within public health domains, including healthy eating promotion, tobacco and alcohol control, regulatory intervention approaches (e.g., smoking bans and sugar taxation) have been adopted. However, regulatory actions for sedentary behaviour are scarce [ 19 ]. Within the education sector, some countries recently banned mobile phone use in schools for academic purpose [ 25 ]. While this implies potential feasibility and desirability of such interventions internationally, there is little research on the demand for, and acceptability of, multi-faceted sedentary behaviour regulatory interventions for the purpose of improving health and wellbeing. It will be particularly important to identify and understand any differences in perceptions and feasibility both within (e.g., public versus policy makers) and across countries of differing socio-cultural-political environments.

This natural experiment evaluation indicates that a multi-setting, regulatory intervention on sedentary behaviour has been effective in reducing total sedentary behaviour, and multiple types of sedentary behaviour among Chinese school-aged children and adolescents. Contextually appropriate, regulatory interventions on sedentary behaviour could be explored and considered by researchers and policy makers in other countries.

Data availability

Access to anonymised data used in this study can be requested through the corresponding author BL, subject to approval by the Guangxi CDC. WZ and SVP have full access to all the data in the study and takes responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis.

Abbreviations

Centre for disease control and prevention

Directed acyclic graph

Gross domestic product

Metabolic equivalents

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development

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Acknowledgements

We would like to acknowledge Dr Peter Green and Dr Ruth Salway for providing feedback on the initial data analysis plan, and Dr Hugo Pedder and Lauren Scott who provided feedback on the statistical analyses.

This work was funded by the Wellcome Trust through the Global Public Health Research Strand, Elizabeth Blackwell Institute for Health Research. The funder of our study had no role in the design and conduct of the study; collection, management, analysis, and interpretation of the data; preparation, review, or approval of the manuscript; and decision to submit the manuscript for publication.

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BL conceived the study idea and obtained the funding with support from WZ, CF, KS, YX, YZ, ZH and RP. BL, CF, FdV and KS designed the study. WZ led data collection and provided access to the data. YX, SVP and ZH cleaned the data. SVP analysed the data with guidance from BL, FdV and CF. BL, SVP and RP drafted the paper which was revised by other authors. All authors read and approved the final manuscript for submission.

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Li, B., Valerino-Perea, S., Zhou, W. et al. The impact of the world’s first regulatory, multi-setting intervention on sedentary behaviour among children and adolescents (ENERGISE): a natural experiment evaluation. Int J Behav Nutr Phys Act 21 , 53 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12966-024-01591-w

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Money Report

China's international students under pressure as economic uncertainty looms

By ,cnbc • published may 14, 2024 • updated on may 14, 2024 at 10:44 pm.

• Since last year, there have been over 4.58 million views with the hashtag "funding for overseas studies cut off" on social media platform "Xiaohongshu," often seen as China's Instagram.
• A 2023 survey conducted by New Oriental Education and Kantar shows that among the students and parents intending to pursue postgraduate degrees abroad, 27% of them said their funding plans have been impacted by the pandemic.

When Xiao Zhang went to the U.S. to study in 2019, she never expected that she would one day have to look for odd jobs to help fund her college fees.

The 24-year-old Chinese student is currently studying design in an undergraduate program at a university in Alabama. Her parents have so far spent 1.5 million Chinese yuan, or about $211,500, to fund her overseas studies and living expenses.

But in October last year, her parents told her they were facing cash flow problems and could no longer offer her financial support. At that point, Zhang had enough money just to cover three months of rent. She still needed to pay the tuition fees for one more semester, she said, without specifying the amount.

Get San Diego local news, weather forecasts, sports and lifestyle stories to your inbox. Sign up for NBC San Diego newsletters.

Zhang is hardly alone. Her experience has become increasingly common.

Since last year, there have been over 4.58 million views with the hashtag "funding for overseas studies cut off" on social media platform "Xiaohongshu," often seen as China's Instagram. As a growing number of overseas Chinese students run into financial difficulties due to the declining wealth of their families, many have gone online to express their struggles and seek advice on how to cope with the situation.

A 2023 survey conducted by New Oriental Education and Kantar shows that among the students and parents intending to pursue postgraduate degrees abroad, 27% of them said their funding plans have been impacted by the pandemic. That's far higher than the 19% who said the same in 2021 and 2022.

China pledges $42 billion in a slew of measures to support the struggling property sector

Chinese EV maker Xpeng aims to deliver its first flying car in 2026

"I didn't have time to feel sad because I needed to make money to pay for my tuition fees and rent as soon as possible," Zhang told CNBC in Mandarin.

Zhang's father invested in the pharmaceutical industry during the Covid-19 pandemic but has since incurred huge losses. He saw his wealth and investments shrink and eventually told his daughter he could no longer support her education in the U.S., and offered to pay for her air ticket home instead.

Zhang started looking for part-time jobs such as babysitting or on-campus work, but it wasn't easy. She only managed to secure a temporary job in another state one month later. 

"Between November and January, I had to work from 7 am every single day," said Zhang. "I was exhausted and had no time to study during that time. But at least I earned enough money to cover my next semester."

Brighter prospects with overseas degree?

Chinese parents place great emphasis on providing their children with a good education.

As the world's second largest economy grew, it became increasingly integrated with international markets, driving more parents to send their children to study abroad and gain overseas exposure. 

According to the latest data released by China's Ministry of Education, the number of Chinese students studying abroad reached 703,500 in 2019 — marking a 6.25% year-on-year increase. In comparison, there were just 117,300 in 2003. The ministry stopped publishing that data after 2019.

"Some parents are professionals like lawyers, doctors or business executives who want the best education for their kids," Zhimin Yan, the general manager of an overseas education consulting firm Shenzhen Botong Management Consulting, told CNBC.

"Some are business owners. They want their kids to learn new and advanced ideas through overseas studies and then return home to help grow the family business."

In 2018, about 90% of Chinese students studying overseas were self-funded and not on scholarships or government funding, according to China's Ministry of Education.

That level of financial contribution has meant that international students from China have become an important group for U.S. and UK universities to attract.

Yan, who has been working in the industry for more than 15 years, said most Chinese parents plan well in advance for their children's overseas studies in terms of finances. It's very rare that they will run out of money and be forced to reduce financing for their children's overseas education, he added.

China's economic woes

China's post-pandemic economic recovery has been lackluster, and many Chinese families are feeling the heat.

Michael Bai is a 21-year-old Chinese sophomore student studying Economic and Social History at the University of Glasgow.

After completing his first semester in December 2022, his father announced that his real estate business had gone bust.

Bai had no choice but to find ways to pay for his bills. He tried many different jobs to cover his costs, including food delivery, working in restaurants, selling products in boutiques, and making bubble tea.

His father had previously made a fortune through property investments, but he was hit badly as a result of the severe downturn in the Chinese real estate sector.

"Things were going well at the beginning," Bai told CNBC. But problems involving one of the resorts his dad took over in a coastal city in southern China began to emerge when it became clear there wasn't enough investment in hotel maintenance and management.

Losses in his real estate business were already mounting before Bai left for the UK to study in 2022. Eventually, the business had to fold up.

Over the past few years, the Chinese government has cracked down on developers to reduce their reliance on debt for growth, triggering a slump in the property market. Real estate and its related sectors once accounted for about 25% or more of China's economic output and a significant share of household wealth.

According to a recent KKR report , China's real estate problems are far from over and will continue to drag on overall economic growth if not addressed quickly. KKR sees China's economy growing modestly at 4.7% this year, with real estate and Covid-related factors dragging down the economy from 1.4 percentage points in 2024 to a 0.7 percentage point drag in 2025.

College fees soar

While students are facing funding challenges, the ever-increasing tuition fees from popular college destinations such as the U.S. and UK have made things worse.

A recent report showed that university fees in the United States have risen significantly for the 2023-2024 academic year compared to 20 years ago, and in some cases doubled.

International students pay higher fees at top UK universities. The UK government has capped tuition prices for local students to access postsecondary education, and tuition fees paid by international students are a critical source of income for universities.

Bai told CNBC he has managed to come out of his financial crisis.

He has since started a business with friends through selling used cars and providing related services and claimed the business venture can generate a turnover of £60,000 (approximately $75,100) a month.

He said the income from the business is enough to support him through his studies, and he plans to stay in the business even after obtaining his degree.

Also on CNBC

• Alibaba shares fall 6% after the Chinese tech giant posts 86% drop in profit
• Biden raises tariffs on $18 billion of Chinese imports: EVs, solar panels, steel
• Tencent posts fastest profit growth in 3 years as online ads, business services offset slower gaming

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Primary students read in the morning session at a school in Changchun, capital of Northeast China's Jilin Province, August 23, 2021. Photo: Xinhua